Which track?

I got all excited checking the C&L site last night. They now have laser cut wooden bases for plain track! There are a plethora of prototypes to choose from underlining how difficult it is have the "correct" track for your chosen railway company from the likes of PECO. I'm afraid if you want correct track you will have to make it yourself. I've never done that but I am planning an EM gauge layout for later this year (in my head anyway).

I have been making 00 code 100 points for my club's layout. They seem OK and I am gaining confidence. This has increased my understanding of the geometry of points and the inter-relationships with wheels amazingly. My advice is to give something new a try.

C&L also make an etched brass fishplate for soldering to rail sides - even if you have a yard length of track you can nick the top at scale 45'/60' lengths (to get the wheel clack over the joint) and use the fishplate as cosmetic. They also have plastic fishplates for locations where you want isolation.

Richard

thanks again. Your comments and help are really appreciated.
It just upsets my original plan - which was to start with a simply connected loop and sidings and then move on as I got more comfortable with things. It's years since I've done any soldering and my old irons are beyond redemption as I did not treat them terribly well at the time. That, plus 'possible extras' is likely to mean that start-up costs are beyond what I have budgeted for unless I don't buy any locos / rolling stock - which are what I'm actually doing it for in the first place! It's think again time.

I guess also that I was surprised that C&L do not even make make provision for the option of joining electrically, but presumably they don't see it as a requirement for the market they are aiming at - I was aware that most serious modellers do use the more complicated (to me) dropper approach (although I'd forgotten the name) but had not appreciated that it was the norm. Beginning to look at C&L a bit more closely too - and wonder if the sleeper lengths and spacings on oo track are the same as for P4, in which case they'll be oversized for the track width. Grave danger here of going Peco after all, but I do like the more realistic look of the C&L.... Ah, decisions!

Dear Richard, Peter, Martin, Brossard and all.. This is a most interesting topic and I must say I have learnt quite a lot and it does give you the impetus to jump in and have a go at finescale trackwork. I was a bit concerned about not using rail joiners. Getting track lengths to line up accurately, without moving. Mmmh must be possible. Droppers definately. Certainly, as Richard says soldering is like gluing but I have a feeling there is a little more to it than that. I can never get my attempts to look neat. 'Its an art, and an art well worth the learning." I'd like to know if anyone in Oz is building bespoke trackwork or is the UK the place to source professionally made pointwork. All in all I think its well worth the effort and I am now more convinced than ever that discarding Peco track is a step in the right direction. The four track mainline with complex pointwork all over the place will have to go out the door and a simpler easier project planned. Still as someone in this forum said prototype trackwork went for miles without pointwork.. Gamelin Bank in a recent BRM was a bit of an inspiration. So it may be prorotypical. Thanks everbody, especially Chris O who started this thread. I feel quite enthusiastic about the whole idea.

*** Hi Silurian

C&L makes a slight compromise on width and sleeper length with the OO track to keep proportions right, so there is a difference between OO and EM/P4.

Read through my soldering pages, get hold of my 179 solder and flux and even with a naff Iron, providing its able to deliver heat reasonably, I'd be betting you can make a good solder joint.

You can practice on Peco offcuts

If necessary, I can talk you through it on the phone.

Have a go - you will be pleasantly surprised

Richard

QUOTE (Richard Johnson @ 30 Jun 2009, 20:50) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>*** Hi Silurian

C&L makes a slight compromise on width and sleeper length with the OO track to keep proportions right, so there is a difference between OO and EM/P4.

Read through my soldering pages, get hold of my 179 solder and flux and even with a naff Iron, providing its able to deliver heat reasonably, I'd be betting you can make a good solder joint.

You can practice on Peco offcuts

If necessary, I can talk you through it on the phone.

Have a go - you will be pleasantly surprised

Richard

Thankyou Richard.

I most certainly will. All the best. What do they say.. 'the longest journey'. Regards

QUOTE It just upsets my original plan - which was to start with a simply connected loop and sidings and then move on as I got more comfortable with things. It's years since I've done any soldering and my old irons are beyond redemption as I did not treat them terribly well at the time. That, plus 'possible extras' is likely to mean that start-up costs are beyond what I have budgeted for unless I don't buy any locos / rolling stock - which are what I'm actually doing it for in the first place! It's think again time

PP.....firstly, obtaining [notice I didn't specify 'buying?] decent tools is an investment....arguably not just for model railway use?

Perhaps your old irons [no songs please, those from Kent]....aren't quite as unredeemable as you imagine?

Is it possible to buy a new tip or two?

Irons, anyways, aren't overly expensive these days.....sites such as Richard's, and C&L, not only sell suitable irons, but inform us as to what sort are best.

Turn the idea of ''loco's'' into ''loco''......be much more selective about stock acquisition...[I'd suggest buying kits from the likes of Parkside, rather than RTR..at least you'll get fairly accurate models...if this forum's observations are anything to go by?]

Another 'route' you could try, is to have a go at PCB trackwork?

Whilst not as 'realistic', close up, as the new stuff coming out from the likes of C&L, etc......it certainly is more robust, and from a normal viewing distance..[and with practice] can be almost as good to look at.

plus, it may be cheaper to do?

also, being soldered, if a mistook is done, then nothing is irretrievably stuck down.

[I have been known to go one further in the titewad stakes, and only use pcb sleepers every now and then...the rest being card or thin wood {veneers is a posh word I'd hesitate to use......I simply left some cheapo plywood outside for a few months..it de-laminated quite nicely}]

I take it the main thing you're after is the bullhead rail appearance, with better sleeper sizes?

Alastair

many thanks, but where to start?

The truth is that I stumbled on model railways again by accident when looking for 'iron' things to paint and wile I was temporarily house-bound. Also found some fascinating old 'dreadnoughts' and 'pre-dreadnoughts' as well while looking for the Iron Duke.

The pre-occupation with track and wheels is that having some Hornby track, when it came to even a semi-realistic painting it looked so odd to me that I couldn't bring myself to use it even as a guide to where the lines should be. As for the sleepers...

I spent a lot of time researching the locos on the internet (part of pretending to be an artist is that it's a great excuse for 'researching' into interesting things) and, because MRF in particular was such a useful source of information, I ended up looking at (and coveting) the models as well - but actually I also sometimes really struggle with the shiny fat leading (bogie) wheels that some of them have. Back to the track - from that point of view I just wanted to get something that looks as close to the real thing without having to devote myself to hours of soldering, sticking ABS chairs to ABS sleepers using noxious chemicals and so on as possible - but in reality from the point of view of painting I can probably survive without any of it at all, but......

Unfortunately my interest has now been rekindled in railways in general and the locomotives in particular (well, also trams and buses, but that's another story). The technical aspect as well as the looks is fascinating. The main reason for trying to understand what looks reasonable is to be able to get the stuff and have it availabe for use, look at - and get it all running, build scenery but be able to have different layouts and so on - well, to 'play trains' rather than aim for a club-style, super-detailed representation of the real thing.

What really puzzles me (and has sadly led to many of the dumb questions) about it all is that, for track which is such an essential part of the thing, there seems to be such a gap between the realism that is possible and what is available 'off the shelf', and that simple connectivity appears to have not really progressed that beyond what was available 40 years ago. The gap between 'playing trains' and 'serious modelling' appears to have increased rather than the former benefitting from advances in the latter, which is what I had expected to have happened.

So, with all the information so kindly given on MRF (which I'm extremely gratefull for) I guess I need to decide whether or not go ahead.....

Sorry, rather long involved, and the dumb questions are probably irritating and will be stopped!

dwhite4dcc

that's rather good. Oddly enough I'd totally dismissed the Tillig as the photos on the site I found selling it showed them as almost black!

Richard

absolutely - it was based on that photo that I decided the C&L looked good, rather like dwhite4dcc's photo of Tillig track has re-aroused interest.
But if I hadn't stumbled upon MRF by accident (actually from a French site linked to one of the tests here) etc.

The track-makers mentioned have managed to work out how to sell on the internet but not put a photo up - possibly a question of cost / bandwidth, I don't know, but it is interesting that they don't bother to do so. My own theory is that most people who buy (other than perhaps Peco which is a sort of tradition and is available from suppliers who do have photos on their sites) do so because they have seen the track used by friends, at model exhibitions and so on, or had it recommended as here - and that in general the track-makers are targetting people already keen on modelling and 'in the swim'.....

I was once called 'Mr. Average' - not necessarily complimentary - but I often find that my 'new' interests coincide quite a lot with general public taste and interests of those of my generation. Therefore, if I'm now getting passionately interested in railways again there is a chance that there will be others in the same position - they won't necessarily have access to other modellers, wouldn't even know where to start, but they are likely to have internet access and reasonable ability to find things there - so I think SMP / C&L etc. having decent photos on their sites would really help to attract people.....

QUOTE (PeterPug @ 30 Jun 2009, 20:18) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Additional comment:

I think there would be less questions about track from us in the wilderness if the likes of C&L, Peco, SMP/Marcway would put some photographs on their sites....

Peter,

Totally agree with you on that. C&L 's web page's are full of descriptions,prices but no pictures. I am a strong believer " a picture is worth a 1000 words " man. We continental modelers are quite lucky in this respect such that in the link below there are catalog's of nearly all manufacturers at your disposal:

http://lokshop.de/

Click on prices and select the manufacturer of your choice to see their catalog. Tillig for that matter too.

Erkut

Don`t know if this helps as I`m modelling the late 50s and the track would be different in the 70s, but I`ve been looking closely at OO trackwork and decided to go with C&L, I`ve made a few of their point kits and I think its the best option at the moment, for flexi track I looked at C&L, tillig, SMP and exactoscale (track base).

The problem with OO is that if you go for the correct scale sleepers per 60ft it looks wrong looking more like narrow gauge track, C&L flexi works out at 26 sleepers per 23cm (60ft at 4mm/ft should have max 26 sleepers per 24cm) so I settled for the following for my straight track;

cutting the flexitrack into 23cm sections
soldering droppers to each rail
glueing to 48mm x 4mm cork strip off centre by 4mm for the ballast shoulder (for double straight sections gives approx 45mm track centres)
removing the web
spraying with sleeper grime/rust
then dry ballasting
then going to the baseboard
drilling holes for the droppers
then connecting each section like set track using exactoscale fishplates before glueing the cork down and then dry ballasting over the gaps and finally airbrushing for dirty ballast.

Takes a while

QUOTE (ChrisO @ 1 Feb 2009, 21:34) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Thanks to everyone for their replies. As I say I'm new to the forum and have returned to the hobby after 20 years or so (house, marriage, kids etc.) I had a layout when I was young, which my Dad built using Peco track, and I've just managed to get a couple of yards of Peco code 100 concrete sleepered track which looks OK, but doesn't seem to have changed from 20 years ago!!! when we appear to have had so many advances in the hobby, it seems a bit of a shame. I want the new layout to realistic, but I'm not bothered about 100% accuracy
Anyway, I've heard and read SMP and C&L are far superior but it's hard to find good comparison photos.
Does Marcway pointwork go with SMP?
I've not heard of Tillig, but I've seen an ad in Model Rail for 'Borg' does anyone use their track?
Borg? That'll be me. Sorry I'm a bit late on this but I haven't been on MRF that long and I've been busy with Signals.

If you want any info on Pointwork etc, you are welcome to contact me direct if you wish.